Pew Sitters

Inside Catholic has posted a slew – a slew -of reactions to the Pew study. The respondants are all over the map, and include a bishop or two. It’s well worth a read, and Inside Catholic has done a great job of collecting this diverse responses.

So the real “solution” always has to be, Do more of everything. Better art, better journalism, better catechetical education, better living on our own parts (Catholics are probably the number one reason people leave the Church), et familiar cetera. Whatever you can do that is Catholic, do more of that thing, so that the people who yearn for it can find it. We often don’t find it at the parish church.

Specifically, Americans are obsessed with finding narratives of personal discovery — finding our true selves. Narratives of transformation are more obvious in this respect than any other kind. Who wants to say, “Yeah, I was born Catholic and . . . am still Catholic now, so I guess that’s who I am . . . you know, by default”? That just doesn’t have the ring of radical self-discovery that Americans tend to consider “authentic.”

So perhaps what American Catholics need is a renewed devotion to the saints. The saints offer countless stories of people born Catholic who nonetheless underwent radical personal transformations in the fire of Divine love. Even saints who were born Catholic aren’t Catholic by default. If we need some kind of story to tell us who we are, we could do much worse than becoming a self by surrendering that self to Christ.

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A friend recently asked me what I “need from the Church”. My response boiled down to – I need the Church to make saints. Not in naming someone a saint, but rather in calling us all to holiness and perfection. Making modern-day saints out of the ordinary. We have a crisis in holiness in the Church. Holiness would solve every problem.

CARA also did a response and they had some problems with the parameters of the PEW study. Here are some of their comments:

The results reported by Pew do not include any information about when a respondent left
his or her faith. Social scientists have long understood that some who no longer consider
themselves to be a member of the faith in which they were raised, especially those who
currently say they are “unaffiliated,” will return to that faith later in life.5 Michelle
Dillon and Paul Wink recently published an important book, titled, In the Course of a
Lifetime: Tracing Religious Belief, Practice, and Change (University of California Press,
2007), that provides some insight into these lifecycle patterns. Because the Pew report
provides no discussion of when a person left his or her faith some have already asserted
that these Catholic defections likely occurred relatively recently and may be caused in
part by the sex abuse scandal or by a continuing shortage of priests.
CARA’s findings in CCP 2003, shown in the figure on the following page, indicate that a
majority of those who were raised Catholic and who have since left the faith stopped
considering themselves Catholic before 1988 (51 percent). Overall, 4.4 percent of those
who have left the Church did so in 2002, the year before this poll was conducted. Former
Catholics were more likely to say they stopped considering themselves Catholic in nine
of the 20 previous years, including 2001, 2000, and 1999.

In the discussion of those who leave their faith, the Pew study failed to highlight some
important results in the “Summary of Key Findings” regarding the varying likelihoods,
by denomination, that one will leave the faith they were raised in. It is the case that
“Catholicism has experienced the greatest net losses” and “roughly 10% of all [adult]
Americans are former Catholics” but the Catholic Church is also the single largest faith in
the United States—and when comparing numbers across faiths with the Pew data—
proportions matter. The Catholic Church has retained 68 percent of those who grew up
Catholic. By comparison, 60 percent of those raised Baptist are still Baptists as adults and the retention rates are lower for Lutherans (59 percent), Methodists and Pentecostals
(both 47 percent), Episcopalians (45 percent), and Presbyterians (40 percent). Of all the
faith groups in the U.S. that make up at least 1.5 percent of the adult population, only
those who were raised Mormon or Jewish are more likely than Catholics to keep their
faith as adults. Retention rates are reported by Pew in two separate tables in the report.
The first is on pages 30, including Catholics, and the other is on page 31, including
Protestant denominations. Retention rates can also be calculated from results shown on
page 26. Below, we combine these results in one table and rank retention rates for all
faith groups that account for at least 1.5 percent of the population. . . . As bad as the aggregate losses are for Catholics, the Catholic Church would
5
be even worse off if they were losing members raised in the Church at the same rate as
Baptists, Lutheran, Methodists, or other Protestant faith groups. Without this context it
may appear that a vast number of Catholics recently got up and left the faith and that
these losses were worse than those experienced by any other faith. In relative terms—as
the percentage of those who retained the affiliation of their childhood—Catholics are
among the most successful at retaining those raised in their faith. This point went largely
unnoticed in the news coverage of the Pew results.

By the way, I thought David Carlin’s piece was right on the money. Catholicism in the US has become Americanized and thus indistinguishable from evangelicalism or society in general. So, then, what would be the rush or the impetus to become or remain Catholic?

However, the notion that we need to find “our true selves” and that that requires a “radical transformation” in order to ring true partakes more than anything of evangelicalism and born-againness. So what if Catholics born in the faith are happy in it and find what they seek there? This doesn’t necessarily mean that they have not been radically transformed. It only means that their stories are perhaps not as “showy” as those of others. You might want to compare the personal stories of John Paul II and Benedict XVI in this respect. John Paul’s is much more dramatic than Benedict’s, but I wouldn’t want to say that Benedict is not as personally transformed as John Paul or as deeply devout or as saintly. Also, remember the saints of the “little way.” Their hidden lives and hidden prayers have generated who knows how many transformative moments, yet they were not showy.

I think the evangelical example has been deformative and shallow, as has the rest of American culture and to copy it misses the point.

I think Marcel gets at what I have tried to assert by trotting out the “Mercedes Principle” in reference to these discussions both now and in the past. (The Mercedes Principle states that no one values anything they don’t have to sacrifice to get and keep.)

If I am to value something, it has to cost me. Being challenged to be a saint, not merely in some sloganeering sort of way, but in a way that insists that I get my life and relationships in order; that challenges me to live out the personal moral teachings of the Church as a way of purifying myself and being a witness to others; that demands that I bring my whole self to worship instead of approaching the sacraments as a consumer; that insists I accept what the sacraments demand of me instead of just what the sacraments do for me, are all ways that the Mercedes Principle can be lived in a real and proactive way.

In short, I believe we need to do a better job insisting that being Catholic demands something of us. This is an un-PC as it gets but contrary to what the song says, all are not welcome, specifically, free-riders need not apply. Or, as St Paul put it, “Let him who does not work, not eat.”

I don’t mean this in an angry, harsh, “let’s start booting people out” sort of way, but in a “let’s all find ways to remind each other that signing up to be Christian means that we are signing up for the possibility of crucifixion” sort of way.

You misunderstand Eve’s point. Her point was that we should simply be who we are as Catholic followers of Christ – and do it more boldly in the world.

It’s one part of the picture – to take our “being in Christ” seriously and not clamping it off into a box that we only open when we’re doing our religion stuff.

Eve is saying that people thirst for God, they look to satisfy that thirst in all kinds of ways, and Catholicism is actually partly about seeing that thirst satisfied in every aspect of life in this world.

Boy, it’s interesting how people always seem to open up a big ‘ole can of hateraide on the average, imperfect Joe/Jane Catholic sitting in the pews (or the ones who have moved on to other churches) when ever some study comes out purporting to show a big exodus from the Catholic Church. Or for that matter, the average priest or bishop who’s trying to keep the whole enterprise from flying apart under the weight of modern life.

Sure, there are some Catholics who have fallen away from the church, or who stray from its teachings, for self indulgent or superficial reasons But it’s ridiculous to blame these less-than-perfect Catholics for the problems in the church. For crying out loud, they’re human beings! Catholics have never been perfect about being pious, observant and sumbitting perfectly to the authority of the church. We’re a church of sinners, and that’s a good thing. People who claim to “remember” a time when almost all Catholics perfectly submitted to every precept of the church are trying to remember a time that never existed.

Being a Catholic is a lot like being married, and like any marriage, there will be ups and downs. Sometimes, a spouse will make the short-term sacrifices and pain needed to make the long-term joy of a relationship work. Sometimes they won’t, and the relationship goes through a rough patch. Sometimes, the problems are so bad that a seperation is the only thing that will bring about peace. Sometimes people will find their back to the relationship, and sometimes, they find someone else that fulfills them and go a different path.

We Catholics are so blessed to have things like grace, confession, and other tools that help us see the need for Christ in our lives and give us the motivation to change our personal behavior, and to become better partners in our “marriage” with God. There’s a central theme in Catholicism that recognizes we should that we rely on God’s grace to keep our precious, fragile, God-given lives from falling into the abyss. This is pretty deep, the kind of thinking that appeals to the many people looking for an authentic relationship with God who are tired of the superficiality of modern life and the spirituality found in the typical mega-church. Yet, we do little to promote it. We have to realize that religion has changed in this country, we live in a market place of ideas where people will choose what they feel is the strongest idea, the one that best suits their lives. If we don’t do a better job of arguing our case, we’ll be left behind. People are not going to come to us. We need to go to them. Other denominations have figured this out, which is why they are doing better keep/attracting followers.

If you ask your typical young person what they are looking for as far as spirituality, you often find they say they are looking for something to be a part of that’s bigger than their own day-to-day lives. But the Catholic church does a very poor job of reaching out to these “seekers.” Sure, some may have qualms about how certain church teachings, but I don’t know a Catholic (liberal, conservative or otherwise) who doesn’t question church treaching at some point in their lives. Instead of going on another Inquisition and driving these people out, we need to focus on how we can focus on what we can do to keep them.

A lot of the people who posted on the Inside Catholic website who complained about a lack of orthodoxy among the common people and priests of the church need to get real. Telling people they are going to tell hell if they don’t conform to their particular brand of Catholic piety is not going to help us make the argument we need to keep the church strong.

–So perhaps what American Catholics need is a renewed devotion to the saints. The saints offer countless stories of people born Catholic who nonetheless underwent radical personal transformations in the fire of Divine love.

I think this is insightful, but puts the cart before the horse.

The issue is: waht does it mean to be Born Catholic to someone? For those people who are happy in church, happy in the pews, the Pew study is not relevant. For those who self identify as having “left” the Church, that implies they recognized, at least dimly, they were once part of it.

In what way?

My personal experience is that I had never experienced any feeling or thought or idea that I could identify as Grace. In fact, I was never even TAUGHT the idea of Grace in Catholic School, except in history class where it was taught as a Puritan Calvinist idea.

Without Grace, without knowing about Grace, without recognizing that I’d received Grace, in what sense was I experiencing being a Catholic? Even during the dry periods of doubt where one does not FEEL Grace, one needs to know it is present, have been taught to recognize it, to know it is there.

so maybe the people who left the Church are the ones that need some notion of a personal transformation that identifies them as having received some Grace. So maybe one way to stop similar folks from leaving is to teach about Grace–teach in catechism, teach in charity work, teach in personal life, and yes, therefore, teach the stories of the Saints until the SEE how Grace is working in their own lives.

While I recognize now that it’s not about me, it’s about Christ, it took me a LONG time to get there. Thankfully, Christ accepted me back into the fold long before I did. I recognize that people who see the evangelism as a kind of selfishness, a kind of pride instead of a putting-oneself-in-Christ’s work have a point. But returning to Christ, even for “Good” Catholics, is a work in progress, and I for one couldn’t have learned about Christ if he hadn’t been willing to work through my own selfish need for transformation.

Conan, I’m inclined to agree with you that at all times there has not been complete acceptance of the Church’s teachings. Not being 2000 years old I can’t know for sure, but humans being human the Church has always had some wrong to right. However, orthodoxy is a big deal and I don’t think it can be overemphasized since right thinking, aka orthodoxy, is the underpinning of right action. I don’t think that anyone’s telling others they’re, “going to hell if they don’t conform to their particular brand of Catholic piety” since I’d think most agree with the cliche “different strokes for different folks,” especially when it comes to one’s way of worshiping God. The “different strokes for different folks” principle doesn’t apply to Church doctrine, however. The fact is that saying you’re Catholic says that you believe in this one, holy, catholic, apostolic, Divinely instituted Church, not the sometimes-right-but-not-now church. The Church needs to do more to catechize Her members so that we all can see the reason for our beliefs. The blessings you mention, such as grace and confession, and the Eucharist, all rely on that orthodoxy, that deposit of faith. I have no idea how the Church as an institution should reach out to the “seekers”, but I think I see how the Church as the Body of Christ, made up of us individuals, should. But that’s the easy part.

While the Church in America is certainly ‘Americanized’ (as the Church in Ireland is Irishized, and the Church in Italy is Italianized) I have a hard time seeing anything in the Catholic Church that remotely resembles evangelicalism (per Janice) except perhaps the English language–the Evangelicals would certainly be insulted to hear that comparison made. Evangelicals emphasize personal conversion and personal relationship with Christ, and most of them don’t baptize their kids as babies (to name but a few things…emphasis on Bible over sacraments; emphasis on stirring the heart to worship, rather than liturgical form of worship…priesthood…yada yada yada.)

I think the transformation Catholics long for is actually the Spirit agitating for authentic conversion, even among cradle Catholics. Showing up at Mass is necessary, but not enough. John Paul II urged us towards this–hard–in Ecclessia in America. If we’d take up a serious study of that document and put what it teaches into practice, the Pew Study would be irrelevant.

It’s the accommodation to the culture that I mean by being “Americanized.” That’s evangelicalism par excellence. “Meeting people where they are,” music geared to the audience, “causes” that range from social issues to nuclear war, hazy definitions of orthodoxy, etc. The notion of “personal conversion” that evangelicalism uses puts the emphasis on “personal,” i.e., there is no standard other than my own. The same for the “stirring of the heart.” It all comes out of the revivalism of the 19th century and apart from Protestant denominationalism. The emphasis is not on doctrine, but on feeling. And that’s been the trend of American Catholicism and RCIA since Vatican II.

I think Eve’s hit the mark, because that’s what women do best – cutting through the carapace of bluster to seek where the vulnerablities that hurt really lie, reading the book of the heart, see recent article on theme of “personal narrative” here:

What I notice in almost all these remarks is the emphasis on catechesis. Great ! I agree! I’m a catechist, and I invested a lot of time to become one. But how many do? How do our parishes–starting with our pastors–view catechists? Is it different than being a Girl Scout leader–“just a volunteer”, mostly working with kids, and out of sight, out of mind?

I think catechesis is a broad vocation and God calls many to it who aren’t listening. But whenever I read a bunch of Catholics who’re concerned about catechesis, especially adult catechesis, I want to jump up and yell, “So what are you willing to do about it yourself?!?!” You want the church to teach about the saints? Great. Call your DRE, because I’m sure they need your help right now.

Isn’t the simplest explanation for the high rate of fallen-away Catholics this?

That a Catholic who divorces and remarries is no longer in good standing — at least without a lengthy and perhaps painful and difficult annulment process?

And that because of this, many Catholics after a divorce will move to another denomination or cease practicing? Whereas in other denominations, divorce and remarriage will not change a member’s status.

I wonder what percent of fallen-away Catholics fell away after divorce?

If there is a connection between lapsing and Catholic-handling of divorce and remarriage, then one thing that might stem the flow is this: reassign the annulment process to the internal forum.

Okay, let’s not pick on catechists! I taught protestant Sunday School for 23 years and CCD for 3 years. We are all volunteers and as such we deserve better than that. I began teaching Sunday School in the Congregational church for two reasons. One I felt something was missing upstairs (can you guess what?) and two, all they did was talk about Jesus and scripture and I really didnt’ know much about either one. The sad fact is that I had gone through Confirmation (1962)in the Catholic Church. I believed deeply, but I had no knowledge; I could never give a reason for my hope. My belief was purely a gift of grace, a gift for which I am deeply grateful. I knew God was truly present in church, but I didn’t have the God, Jesus, HS thing down. I didn’t remember a whit from my First Communion classes. And after all these years. my 5th graders iin CCD are no different than I was, except most of them don’t have the gift of faith. They have absolutely no idea what is meant by the Real Presence, none.

And let’s not confuse all evangelicals with the mega church multimedia feel good Christianity. That is unfair. Evangelicals for the most part are not about feelings. They are about atonement, sin and redemption. And for them, redemption is only possible through a personal dependence upon and relationship with their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And they take as their most important mission, to go and bring the good news to all the ends of the earth. They do so by open evangelization and some by prosylethizing, sheep stealing to be crass, but also by doing good works. Building schools, hospitals, feeding the poor and hungry etc. No they don’t have the ‘fullness of faith’ but they believe in the Trinity, in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, in his Lordship etc. We have more in common than you might think or they seem to know.

You are right, their religion is all about a personal relationship with Jesus and individual salvation, but Catholicism understood correctly is also about cultivating a personal relationship with Jesus just as evangelicals do, through Scripture study and prayer AND through the sacraments. They lack the ecclesial and communal understanding of Christianity as we understand it, but they are passionate.

From personal experience I can tell you, that unless and until one has a personal relationship with Jesus, however you come to it, you can’t really appreciate the Church or the Catholic faith. Because their ‘practical’ trinity is the Bible and me and Jesus makes three, they can easily go off the road and down a ravene which is why there are so many denominations. Catholicism is more like a team effort. Each member of the team needs to work out and be their personal best, however we race as a team and there is no ‘I’ in team. The Church is our sponsor and our coach providing knowledge, understanding, technique and protection. She gives us a safe place to practice and learn as well as a well tested and well worn track on which to run the race. And it is a wide track folks. You can veer to the left or right but as long as you remain on the track, you will enjoy the benefits of being on the team and you will reach the goal. What we have that so many of us don’t appreciate are guard rails to keep us from going off the side of the track, (Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium) to keep us together. Our separated brethren don’t have them and they often fall off the cliff.

It is those guard rails that need appreciation. And the way we teach the faith, they are completely misunderstood. It doesn’t matter how much we know about our faith, we are bound as catechists to teach the ‘religion’ and as orthodox as some of the materials are, they never get to the essense of the faith. I heard Jeff Cavins describe the way I see our texts. He said that for most people, Catholicism is like a big pile of ‘stuff’. “The Trinity, oh it’s in there. Grace, yes sir, it’s in there” etc.

We need to spend a lot less time with the k-10 teaching about the religion and far more time teaching about God and Jesus specifically; who He is, what he did for us, the gifts He has given us and our membership in the family of God. If we can create in our kids, a love for God and personally for Christ , they will want to know Him and be like Him, they will seek Him out and they will discover Him in all of areas their life, including the Church, which will not be something other but part of their life.

While I respect your good intentions, you can’t re-assign the annulment process to the internal forum because marriage is a public sacrament. Indee, as “the primordial sacrament,” in a sense, marriage is THE public sacrament. The internal forum is reserved for private matters. Divorce is very public. Remarriage is very public. Moving annulment to the internal forum essentially undermines the Church’s teaching on divorce. As far as annulment being a painful process, I agree that this is sad. But healing a broken body is a painful process. Healing the body of Christ broken by divorce is a painful process. This may be regrettable, but its true.

As someone engaged full time in marriage and family ministry, I agree that more must be done to minister to separated and divorced Catholics, but the internal forum option has been tried, failed, and, as I understand it, rejected by the CDF. I would respectfully suggest that we need to stop re-inventing the broken wheel and discuss something that will work.

Incidentally, contrary to your assertion, divorce or separation does not change a member’s status in the Catholic Church. More needs to be done to convey this to the faithful. That said, re-marriage without annulment does, and should, since marriage is, as St Paul himself says, a sign of Christ’s union with the Church. Disregarding one’s marriage vows to remarry without being free to do so perverts this sign and causes a serious public scandal that warrants serious response.

This does not mean that these cases should not be dealt with pastorally (since in most cases, IMHO, its the Church’s fault that these couples were not properly formed in the first place and often admitted to the sacrament irresponsibly). But there is no such thing as a pastoral reponse that fails to reckon with the hard truths in play.

Thanks for your response. I didn’t mean to imply that divorce alone changed one’s status in the Church — only, as you say, divorce and remarriage without an annulment.

I’m aware the Church does not allow annulments to be handled in the internal forum (except I believe in exceptional cases, such as when it may be impossible to track down a long-divorced spouse).

I’m not aware that the Church has definitively ruled out the internal forum as a future possibility. In fact, I suspect the Church may have already considered how to streamline the regularization of Orthodox remarriages, without a Tribunal process, in the event of reunification.

Whether or not the internal forum is a possibility, I thought it strange that most of the folks discussing Catholic defections made no reference to the obstacle of irregular marriages.

Enlighten me. All I hear is the “personal relationship” that evangelicals have with Jesus. But wouldn’t it be just as fair for Catholics, to say nothing of the Orthodox, to turn the tables and say to evangelicals that they [the evangelicals] could not possibly know what a “personal relationship” with Jesus could be like, since they do not have a sacramental relationship with Him? And what about the Orthodox concept of deification?

It seems to me that the evangelical notion of a “personal relationship” with Jesus is predicated simply on sola Scriptura, a while Catholics and Orthodox both recognize the place of Scripture, for example in lectio divina, there is a dual reality here, that being the Eucharist. Benedict XVI in Sacramentum caritatis characterized Catholicism as a “Eucharistic faith” with the Word and the Eucharist both informing the one who believes.

So, again, I’d like to ask: what is so superior about the personal relationship of evangelicals to Jesus? And simply because Catholics manifest their relationship to Jesus in a different way does not necessarily imply that it is inferior.

I’ve often been surprised at a number of recent posts, how resistant some are to the notion of a personal and intimate relationship with Christ, apart from whom I wouldn’t know how to make the first bit of sense out of Catholicism. In love with Christ, everything about Catholicism makes perfect sense–authority, sacraments, liturgy. I must say, I don’t understand that resistance. I read ‘personal relationship with Christ’ everywhere in the Church teaching (esp. last 40 years)–but I don’t see it lived out among very many Catholics, and when I hear from those who left the Church…that’s why they left.

I hate to link to my own blog but it’s easy to misinterpret the Pew Study, because Pew does it too.

The retention rate of Catholics, as pointed out in post 3, is not that bad. Only Mormons and Jews retain childhood members better. Where Catholics have been absolutely dismal is in attracting members. No denomination is even close to as bad as we are. For example the closest religion to us is Judaism, which does 63% better than we do at attracting members (11 vs. 18%). So in fact what the Pew Study points to is an utter failure to evangelize and has little to do with poor catechesis to cradle catholics.

Also another finding I found is that we are doing a dismal job of retaining second generation hispanics. We are losing close to half of immigrant’s children. What is being done in the Church to confront that issue. For more details check out.

Regarding the “personal relationship” that is so much the Evangelical focus:

I don’t know any other way to answer you than to talk about how I experience that personal relationship.

But I wince as I contemplate doing so, for three reasons:

(1.) I am no very diligent person in my walk with God. The erratic and distractable nature of my prayers is such that I feel a fool for even posting this. I would not set myself as an example for anyone; in some ways, I’m better used as a cautionary tale.

(2.) Jesus loves me; His graces are such that they are like love notes. It feels inappropriate, an invasion, to roll all that tenderness out in front of a crowd.

(3.) I fear your reaction, Janice, in particular, for I am ignorant of Catholic liturgy, having never yet attended a Mass (excepting a wedding in a Melchite church). And it appears that Evangelicals who know nothing of the liturgy are spiritually suspect, or else not worth much, in your book. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your tone — always hard to discern in written form — but that is one of my reasons for reticence.

Still, you asked the question; I’ll answer as much as I can.

I am an Evangelical Christian. I am in the process of learning about the Catholic church, and the thought is in my mind that God may lead me to become a Catholic.

An earlier thread observed that Catholic-to-Evangelical “conversions” (a horribly inappropriate word) outnumber Evangelical-to-Catholic “conversions” eight-to-one, and that “the one” is invariably someone who is interested in history, who comes to Catholicism through an intellectually rigorous process, and who does so with little or no contact with actual Catholics.

My wife laughed when she read that, and pointed it out to me, because it describes me exactly. I do not come toward the Catholic church because I am not being “fed” at the Evangelical Baptist, Methodist, and non-denominational churches I have attended. I am. In those families of worshipers I have seen grace and power and growth. But I also want authenticity, and to know the doctrines and dogmas which are actually correct, not mere guesses…and it is there that I am drawn to the Catholic church.

Still, you asked what the “personal relationship” with Jesus is like for an Evangelical, and how it compares with what Catholics experience through the liturgy. As I have already said, I cannot answer the second part of that question; as for the first part, I can only tell you what I have seen (having grown up among Evangelicals) and what has happened to me.

Jesus leads Evangelical Christians to spiritual truth personally. They ask Him what to do; He tells them. They say they love Him; He responds that He loves them. They mourn; He comforts them. That is a relationship, and it is with a Person, and it is two-way.

It seems to me that this mystical relationship is Scriptural: The Lord Jesus spoke to the Apostles with audible voices and with visions and by prompting them with the memory of Scripture passages. I also suspect — though it is harder to describe these things and it is therefore harder to see it in Scripture — that He spoke to them through inexpressible leaps of joy or dread in their inmost beings and by that quiet inner voice which is not audible but nearly seems audible for the clarity by which it awakens conscience, reason, and sensitivity.

Anyway, all of these things happen to Christians in the Evangelical tradition. So they say they “know” the Lord for the same reasons that St. Paul could say it. And the word “relationship” seems fitting.

As I said in another posting, I have served the Lord in a Methodist church, several Baptist churches, and one non-denominational church. In each place I have seen men and women, leaders and laity, filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit. I have seen them praying with power. I have seen them sent by God to other lands and into danger to bring the Gospel, and protected there by miraculous interventions and signs. I have witnessed one miraculous healing second-hand (a close second-hand, mind you; she’s my mother’s friend; she had very bad M.S. and could walk no more than a few paces without resting; she now does aerobics). I know of two women in my family alone receiving visions from God at important decision-points in their lives.

In my own experience, the Lord has used conspicuous coincidences to guide my steps and to remind me of His mercy and His faithfulness.

And (I must say this, though I fear being so blunt and public about it) He speaks to me; I don’t dare say He doesn’t.

I have heard no audible voice; for me “hearing” the Lord is like a confident knowledge that appears in the mind without having gotten there through ears or eyes, like a leaf that the wind blows up on to a porch, and leaves lying there.

The phrase “still, small voice” comes close, but still uses the word “voice,” which isn’t right; it is more like an echo of a voice, or a memory or expectation of a tone-of-voice.

Is that what it is like for Catholics? I don’t know, I’ve never been one, and have known few.

He told me not to make one foolish decision I made years ago; I knew it at the time and said so to other people at the time, and I did it anyway, and months later after I had done it, He was gracious and merciful to me as I untangled the mess it had made of a few relationships.

In fact He used the experience to teach me about His character. Every time I expected to feel an “I told you so” from Him, He corrected me and said, “I love you” instead. That is how I came to feel what I had long known — that God is Love, and even if He is always Right, He is not always Right in order to be a smart-aleck about it.

Yet His voice is quiet, and His conspicuous coincidences and little mercies only go so far, and no further. He knows me, and I suspect He graciously doesn’t allow me visions and angelic visitors and audible voices and such stuff because (a.) it isn’t necessary, and (b.) because I would either become very prideful, or else go off on a tangent and opine something ludicrous.

And perhaps that’s what I’m doing, even now, by saying all of this. But you asked the question, so here’s an Evangelical describing (altogether haltingly and insufficiently!) his experience with the back-and-forth of having an actual personal relationship with the Risen Christ.

It is too good to be true, and it is too small to be grasped, and it is too large to be seen, and thereby somehow manages to fly under the radar of our usual human desire for miracle show with flashing lights.

But if He shows me His love, tells me what is true, allows me the freedom to walk away, and still welcomes me back to Him when I repent and come home to Him heartbroken, I cannot describe THAT as anything other than a relationship.

I don’t know what knowing Him through the liturgy is like, Janice, because I only now, as an adult and a long-time Christian, have begun to even suspect that there might be something important in Catholicism which is missing from Evangelical Christianity.

In my life I have known less than ten people whom I knew were Catholic, or raised Catholic. Some were Spirit-filled Christians and friends. Some were lapsed or cultural Catholics, who thought that Catholic was the name of their skin-color and not something involving any kind of decision on their part, let alone a real relationship with God. And the remainder were bitterly outraged at the Catholic church while ignorant of its actual doctrines, alternately contemptuous of and bemused by Evangelical worship, and seemed constantly either to be an atheist, or just very angry at God.

For the sake of the few (three, maybe four) Catholics I have ever known who were sincere believers and happy to be Catholic, and because C.S.Lewis thought so, I came to the conclusion that Catholicism was “just another Christian denomination, but one which does an unusually bad job teaching an unusually large percentage of people anything about Christ.”

But then, I have to admit that Evangelical Christianity sometimes does a bad job, too. I have known Baptists who were convinced that drinking so much as a drop of alcohol was a sin, and that the wind Jesus made at Cana was just grape juice. (“Have you ever BEEN to a Jewish wedding?” I’d ask…)

And I’ve known Evangelicals who were convinced the earth was 6,000-odd years old and that all the geologists are in a big conspiracy to say otherwise, and that anyone who doesn’t hold to young-earth creationism is a theologically-liberal sell-out.

So those are mistakes, and they’re silly-seeming ones, once you know better.

But oddly enough God still worked in the lives of people like that. Not so much, I suspect, as He could have if their understanding was more complete. But His mercy extends to a great deal of pity and condescension, if that’s the word: He keeps continuously pursuing us, “hitting us where we live,” despite ourselves. Certain kinds of ignorance, where we’re not at fault, are little or no obstacle to God’s grace.

Would those people have learned better in a Catholic church? I honestly don’t know. They certainly wouldn’t think that the miracle at Cana was to make grape juice, and they’d be armed with a less simplistic view of Genesis (and therefore less prone — marginally so — to being lampooned by skeptics).

But would they still seek relationship with Christ? Would they still experience Him as a loving person with a huge presence in their lives? I don’t know. I only know that a slight majority of the few Catholics I’ve met somehow missed that part in Confirmation.

Would liturgy help with that? Or is it unrelated? Does the fact of an unbroken apostolic succession and authentic patterns of ritual which differ from first-century worship only through evolution, rather than abrupt re-invention, make a difference as to whether a Christian understands that Jesus Christ is a person who is going to speak to them and personally lead them?

That’s as much as I have to say on the subject. I hope it’s helpful, if a statement so long, yet so full of vague descriptions and unanswered questions can be helpful.

If I said anything above which gave offense, please skip over it. I love Jesus — fitfully — and He loves me — majestically, recklessly, absurdly. So anyone and anything He says is beloved, is okay by me, and that includes all Catholics (about whom I’m curious and whom I hope to find are a whole new crowd of my brothers and sisters) and all Evangelicals (who led me to the Lord) and all you everything-else-ists, too.

Bless you, R.C., on your journey, in every step of the way. With your sincere love of Christ, you will find that the Catholic Church allows a deep and joyous relationship with our Lord. I think that for Catholics, the words having a personal relationship with Christ doesn’t quite seem to explain the extreme joy and fulfillment we receive through giving our lives over to loving and worshipping Him. Perhaps living our lives for Christ sounds a bit too intimidating though. In Catholicism, there are “structures” in place that bring us together with Him in a very profound way. We become filled with his grace and you can feel that effect in your life. However, on the other hand, you could just go through the motions. It is up to you. I do think that for anyone who asks Christ to be there with them, He will answer them. No matter what church they belong to. But we Catholics should never hide under a bushel what we have. It is much too precious and life-changing and fulfilling. Perhaps we were made to worship our Lord. And perhaps that is why when we turn away other things seem like they might just be able to take the place of that. But they don’t. Christ is the answer. We hunger for him. And I thank the Catholic Church for facilitating my relationship with Him. My life is changed very much for the better and I am happy just to love and worship Him.

Thanks for your remarks. My argument is not with people like you. It’s with the old canards, frequently repeated by some who frequent comboxes like this, who say that Catholics are “sacramentalized but not evangelized” or that Catholics do not have a “personal relationship” with Jesus. My only point is that such relationships manifest themselves differently in the evangelical and Catholic worlds.

RC,
Thank you! I was chuckling about the part where you talked about God speaking to you; yeah, when I tell people that God spoke to me, they look at me like I mean that there was a flaming shrubbery in the back yard, or that great big body parts were sticking out of a cloud. Er, no, just silent words inside my head a few times in my life, saying things like Go back, Marry him, and The baby will be a boy, and he’ll be a priest.
Your relationship with God is fairly similar to mine, except that I also eat His Flesh and drink His Blood so that I might have life within me, and that He would remain in me and I in Him. I’m a cradle Catholic so I can’t compare our insides either.
God bless.

I don’t think that Catholics are so much resistant to a personal relationship with God, as reluctant to come right out and say that’s what they’ve got. It’s just not the language that cradle Catholics use. Our current pope is very interested in teaching people that Truth is a person to know, not a thing to be distrusted, but you just won’t see him use the buzzwords.

Now, I’ve said this before. But the thing is, lots of Catholics have always had a personal relationship with God, and with a good chunk of the saints as well. This was largely expressed through mysticism or its stepladder, private devotion.

But in the sixties and seventies, and still in many places, private devotion was denigrated and hidden. Every kind of impersonal Eastern meditation was okay — but not the traditional Catholic forms leading to traditional Catholic mysticism. Moreover, a lot of children were never taught that this way of thinking about God even existed, much less that you could follow well-worn paths to get to know Him better.

The reaction to this was the Charismatic movement of the eighties, and not surprisingly, a lot of traditional devotions got swept up into it or taught by it.

But we’re still dealing with a world where, instead of being taught by your parents or the nuns — as a matter of course — to think about God a lot, and to believe that every scripture is pretty much pointed at you personally, people have been taught that God is an impersonal teddy bear in the sky.

Which brings us back to Eve’s comment. You cannot study the lives of the saints without learning the basics of having a personal relationship with God and having a prayer life, much less thinking that doing good means that God wants you just to write a check now and then. They also point out, rather strongly, that being a religious person does not mean stuffing yourself into a plaster mold. Every other saint you run across has a wildly different personality and call. If there’s a place for a soldier saint and a pacifist saint, a fat saint and a skinny one, a saint who travels everywhere and a saint who stays home, and even for saints who are lawyers — why, it becomes blindingly obvious that there’s a place in heaven for you, too.

In re-reading my earlier post, I find I have some clarifications/corrections to make:

(1.) I described “conversion” as being, in my view, a horribly inappropriate word to use for someone who is Evangelical who becomes Catholic, or vice-versa. I take that view because I hear the same word used of persons who start Muslim, or atheist, or anything-else-ist, and become Christian (Catholic or otherwise).

I see these being two different sorts of things entirely. While I may yet conclude that the Holy Spirit leads me and my house to be in communion with the Catholic church, this would be another step of spiritual maturity within the Christian faith. It’d be a change of denomination, certainly. But I would no more think of it as a change of religion than I would describe the status-change of a person pre- and post-Confirmation, or pre- and post-ordination, as a change of religion.

(2.) On the same topic, it is worth mentioning again that I have served in several Baptist churches, a non-denominational church (whose elders come from a mix of Baptist, Presbyterian, and other denominations), and currently a Methodist church. I did not leave any of these because I was dissatisfied with it; I did not begin attending another because it was better. I did not drift from one to another.

In some cases, the change happened when I moved from one town to another. In other cases the change happened because the church to which I was changing needed a musician with my particular skills, and the church I was leaving had less need. But in all cases I sought God’s will in prayer and followed His leading; I viewed it as being a soldier assigned to a different post.

In no change — not one — was I changing religion. I would not even say that I was personally changing denomination, although the church might be a different denomination than the previous one. Since high school I’ve described myself as a Christian, not a Baptist or a Methodist or a whatever-ist. What Catechism I had was largely related to C.S.Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” plus, well, pretty much everything else Lewis wrote. (And fortunately, 99% of that is uncontradicted by Catholic teaching.)

I did not go, and would not take my family, anywhere where the doctrines diverged from the Creeds and Scripture and Sacred Tradition as best as I understood them…though I did not, until recently, begin using the phrase “Sacred Tradition.” My usual phrase was, “What most of the most-well-informed Christians, at most times during the history of Christianity, have believed about their faith.”

And I was careful to avoid places that had sunk into modernism, liberal theology, quasi-Marxist liberation theology, social gospel, and the like. There are certain giveaway phrases which make those easy to spot.

I see well the potential danger in that strategy: I’m just one layperson; how’m I supposed to reliably know what Christians believed in 1307? In 294? I can only answer that (a.) it was a reason to be cautious about any new “ear-tickling” doctrines I might run across; (b.) a reason to be diligent in learning about my faith; and (c.) a reason to start learning about the history of Christianity from A.D. 50 through A.D. 1500; that is, about Catholicism. Which is where I am now.

In one Baptist church I was disappointed because the pastor was, while well-intentioned, a bit ill-informed about current events, and would butcher the details when he passingly referred to them in sermons with exasperating regularity. But I served there and took whatever spiritual nourishment was coming, because my services seemed needed there.

(3.) I said that, because of the people I met, and because C.S.Lewis thought so, I regarded Catholicism as “just another Christian denomination, but one which does an unusually bad job teaching an unusually large percentage of people anything about Christ.”

That was poorly phrased.

What I meant was: C.S.Lewis, in “Mere Christianity,” approached Catholicism as one of the Christian denominations. I took that same view. My experience with some Catholics confirmed as much.

It was my (admittedly limited!) experience with other Catholics (of the cultural or apostate variety) which led me to think that perhaps Catholic Sunday Schools weren’t doing their job particularly well. But C.S.Lewis himself didn’t (as far as I know) make that observation.

And lest anybody get too vexed about that observation, allow me to add: (a.) You’ve observed the same, or this conversation wouldn’t be taking place; and, (b.) as I said above, Protestant churches often don’t do so hot a job of catechesis, either; though the type of mistakes they make is qualitatively different.

And of course there’s always, in all Christian churches, the question of how hard the student was working to understand what was being taught….

(5.) It might be helpful for Catholics to view the Evangelical movement (especially in the American Southeast where there are very few Catholics) as generally Christian, not as denominational, Protestant, or non-Catholic. The average Evangelical doesn’t often think in those terms.

When an Evangelical learns and adopts a Calvinist doctrine (for example) it’s rarely because he’s trying to be a Calvinist. He’s trying to be a Christian, and somebody he trusted told him this is what Christianity teaches. He doesn’t give a fig for John Calvin as an individual and hasn’t heard of 5-point Calvinism and usually doesn’t like it much when someone explains it to him.

Nor does the Evangelical know or care what Luther’s original objections were to Catholic teachings. (“95 what? Oh, yeah, they mentioned that in high-school history. When was that…19th century or something?”) His timeline of faith goes back as far as his own conversion, then jumps from there, all the way back to John on Patmos.

He certainly knows that Catholics have confession-booths and, if he watches “Law and Order,” he knows that’s what’s said therein is legally privileged. He knows that Catholics pay an awful lot of attention to Mary, and this confuses him, since (going by word-count alone) there’s less about Jesus’ mother in the Bible than about Peter or Paul. And all those saints: Those guys aren’t in the Bible, are they? So if asked he’ll make a guess that these aspects of Catholic tradition are kind of like the Book of Mormon: An add-on. He probably doesn’t ever think about it if he isn’t asked.

But he’s not trying to pursue Protestantism; he doesn’t view himself as any kind of protester. He just doesn’t know anything about Catholicism, and the few Catholics he’s met don’t seem to, either. But they’re nice enough folks.

And it doesn’t seem to matter much. He thinks, “Is anyone less prone to alcoholism, or adultery, or being a jerk, because they’re Lutheran instead of Episcopalian? No.” So he buckles down and reads the Bible and Rick Warren and Donald Miller and Max Lucado and Bruce Wilkinson (chiefly recommended on the basis of being authentically Christian but easy-to-read) and gets on with it. He often doesn’t know what denomination these authors are, and certainly doesn’t care. It’s all Christian, right?

Mr. Evangelical admired Pope John Paul II because he was pro-life and anti-Communism and seemed nice. He doesn’t know a thing about Benedict XVI unless Mr. Evangelical is distinctly politically conservative, in which case he likes the current pope because he’s made all the right people angry. (Jihadists, Feminists, Liberal Wishy-Washy Theologians….)

But in all of the above, he hasn’t consciously rejected Catholicism, and he doesn’t have particular affection for the Protestant Reformation. The topic simply hasn’t come up. What little he knows about Catholicism is probably wrong. And he hasn’t considered the question of whether Catholic Christianity is more authentic than his sort, any more than he’s considered the question of whether Coptic or Ethiopian Christianity is more authentic than his.

And his chief attachment to his local church is not on the basis of its denomination, but on the basis of the friends he has there, and whether the music is good, and whether the teaching has led him to grow spiritually. That’s about it.

I’m interested in your statement: “I don’t think that Catholics are so much resistant to a personal relationship with God, as reluctant to come right out and say that’s what they’ve got. It’s just not the language that cradle Catholics use.”

I’ve wondered sometimes whether major and minor schisms in Christianity weren’t partly caused by people using slightly different definitions of the same word…leading Person X to embrace a certain term or analogy as descriptive of some doctrine of the faith, and Person Y to reject it (and use a different one instead).

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying there aren’t actual doctrinal differences between Catholic teaching and the Protestants like Calvin and Luther. There are, and they aren’t just a confusion of terminology.

But confusions of terminology do occur, I think, and the presence or absence of a term with which I’m familiar can make the difference in whether I understand what you’re saying, or not.

Some folks in this conversation have wondered whether there’s anything that Evangelicals “have” or “are doing” which Catholics could use which would help deepen the spiritual lives of Catholics. Perhaps the phrasing “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” is just such a tool?

On the one hand, one ought not over-do it. Adopt a buzzword and use it just as a buzzword, and before you know it, it’ll show up in an amateur comedy sketch on YouTube, get mentioned in a Jon Stewart monologue, and then it’s ruined.

On the other hand, the fact that this phrase is so ubiquitous among Evangelicals means that it does successfully communicate the idea. So perhaps its judicious use by Catholics would prevent the impression that it isn’t something Catholics “have got?”

And I certainly agree that studying the lives of the saints gives a clear notion of one’s devotional life being a personal relationship with Christ. (I recently finished Chesterton’s brief biographies of St. Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas.)

So, why not say so in exactly that terminology? …at least in America where the term is common. And then, go on to teach the concept, using the devotional lives of the saints as a springboard, and then transitioning from the saints, to popular Catholic authors, and then to the individual.

What I mean is this: I fear that if you just say, “Saint X had a personal relationship with Jesus,” it leads to such reactions as, “Yeah, well, Saint X hovered in mid-air too. I’m not so blessed. So what’s that got to do with little old me?”

But if you say, “The heroes of the Old Testament walked with God this way; after Jesus’ Ascension the Apostles and early Christians walked with God this way; Saint X and Saint Y both experienced this personal relationship; Brennan Manning and Mark Shea and (I dunno; fill in a popular author of Catholic devotional books here) live in this personal relationship…” …then you’re making the impression that this is normal Christianity; this is normal Catholic life.

Maybe that’s the impression which is missing in (some) Catholics, which causes them to experience a sense of relief and growth in (some) Evangelical churches?

You might be interested to know that Catholics in the era before Vatican II also had a “personal relationship” with Jesus. In addition to the saints, there were devotions to Jesus (the Sacred Heart of Jesus) as well as the Rosary (which is really a Christological meditation). In addition, when people confessed their sins, they begged forgiveness of Jesus.

What turns me off very much is the phrase itself. It sounds way too New Age-y. But if people insist on using it, what do you think people back in the day had if it wasn’t a personal relationship with Jesus? They prayed to Him, they begged His forgiveness when they sinned, they meditated on His life and passion and death, they had various devotions to Him, they had Benediction. In my estimation, this constitutes a personal relationship with Jesus. And they walked with Him all through their lives. I read an anecdote about Al Smith, the Republican candidate for president in 1928, who was a Catholic. That was back before Catholics were accepted at all and Smith said his faith should not be a stumbling block to voters because all he wanted to do was “walk with his God.”

So it’s not just converts from evangelical groups to Catholicism who have a “personal relationship” with Jesus and this is not a new insight.

I don’t object to people using that terminology. It’s not the worst approximation. But it’s never going to sound particularly natural coming out of my mouth, any more than I’d naturally come up with highly stylized expressions of faith like “I’d just like to thank you, Father God”. And as a nerd, I would like to point out that, when I speak in an idiom unnatural to me, the results are not particularly desirable. :)

I’m interested in learning how to talk to people so they’ll understand what I have to say. But I’m not interested in losing my own way of expressing myself in order to do so. I’ve gotten very sick of having to talk exclusively about “the Middle Ages”, because if I happen to say “medieval”, somebody will think I’m talking about something evil. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, it’s happened several times with otherwise intelligent and informed co-workers. This is the sort of thing that happens all the time when I talk about my ordinary religious activities, unless I walk on eggshells and contort myself into knots. And then people are all like “you don’t talk about your religion much so you must not be very enthusiastic about it”. Sigh. It gets very tiresome.

Back to business. I think we’ve basically got more of a problem inside the Catholic Church in America with locating the accurate information and teaching it to people, or figuring out that it’s there and can be found. The tools are in the box, but most people don’t know where the box is. (Since a lot of people keep trying to lock the box away or say it’s irrelevant, this isn’t surprising.) Since I’m not much of a people person, I have concerned myself more with pulling tools out of the box, cataloguing them, and waving them about until people notice their presence. :)

For example, I had no idea that there was such a long tradition of meditation on the “Seven Last Words of Christ”. So I’m making a public domain audiobook of one of the older books (but hardly the oldest!) on the subject, and I think it will come in useful to people.

I don’t see how you can be ANY type of Christian — Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Orthodox, whatever — WITHOUT having a personal relationship with Christ. If you don’t have that relationship, then you can’t call yourself Christian. And if you don’t have it — what’s the point of calling yourself Christian?

I sometimes think Catholics I encounter these days have gotten so obsessed with “orthodoxy” and doing things this way or that way during liturgy, whether or not a certain vestment is worn or a certain hymn is song — that they completely forget what lies at the heart of the Catholic Church. Jesus Christ. He is the Rock, our beginning and our ending. Without a relationship with Him, it doesn’t matter what song you sing or how much Latin you know — without that relationship and belief in Him, you are not only not Catholic — you are not Christian.

I knew a seminarian a few years ago who confessed to me that he was having a hard time finding Christ in his daily life and having a prayerful relationship with Christ. I told him I thought it might be a good idea then, for him to go to his adviser and consider whether or not his journey toward the priesthood was really the right thing for him at the right time. His answer: “Well, my relationship with Jesus is faltering, but I am so looking forward to being a priest. I can’t wait to transform the communion bread into the Real Presence.”

My mind boggled. In my opinion, being on an altar and celebrating the Eucharist without having a true relationship with Christ is a little bit like playing Harry Potter with the sacraments. You’re trying to do some sort of magic, not bring the congregation into true union with Christ. And to me that’s what Catholicism or any Christian religion is without a relationship with Jesus. It’s bells, smells, noise and whistles — but no substance.

If more Catholics became re-acquainted with the true Jesus Christ and werent’ uncomfortable with that relationship, we would probably see a lot more life in the Catholic Church.

Re: “You might be interested to know that Catholics in the era before Vatican II also had a ‘personal relationship’ with Jesus. In addition to the saints, there were devotions to Jesus (the Sacred Heart of Jesus) as well as the Rosary (which is really a Christological meditation). In addition, when people confessed their sins, they begged forgiveness of Jesus.”

Well, yes; I assumed as much, and have learned a fair bit by reading about Church history from the outside. And I think that whatever our other errors, we Evangelicals have long had this part right (which is to say, it’s always been part of Christianity and Luther, etc., didn’t chuck it out the window when he tossed out certain books of the Old Testament!): That God desires a close relationship with us, and even takes the initiative to reach out to us, and only our rejection of him through sin (original and actual) stands in the way of walking with Him in the “cool of the day” in close personal communion.

Since that is the case, and since (of course) Catholics are Christians, how could Catholics not be in personal relationship with God?

And of course it is God who forgives our sins. I’ll grant that, as an evangelical, the insistence of the Church on confession to an ordained priest was initially a concern to me. It was, as you might imagine, the usual misunderstanding: “What, doesn’t it count if I confess directly to God? Have I no assurance — since Christ died for sinners, and I am surely that — of His forgiveness when I sincerely repent, unless this other fellow is present?”

There are facets of that question which are still unanswered for me (e.g. “is required confession to a priest a matter of discipline which could — however inconceivable it might be at this late date — some day be changed?”) but I am not troubled by it, since I realize that the priest is Christ’s representative or stand-in, a delegate, authorized to loose or bind in His name; a sort of in loco Christus. (Do HTML tags work here? I guess I’ll find out, if that last phrase is italicized or not!)

Re: “What turns me off very much is the phrase itself. It sounds way too New Age-y….”

Hmm. Here I think you and I stand on opposite sides of a cultural divide (which is no criticism of you or me, but merely a difference). It may be age related; it may be a regional difference; and of course it may be due to the difference between being raised Catholic and being raised Evangelical. But the phrase does not strike me as being “New Age-y”; otherwise I’d have a rather more negative reaction to it! For I’m very much a literal and linear thinker. Crystals and fuzzy logic and soft-soap word pictures and fluffy-headed poetry that lacks communicative intent but only “means whatever it means to the listener” and the use of the word “spiritual” merely to mean “emotional”…all this kind of thing makes me very impatient and cranky and prone to be uncharitable to the point of rudeness. It’s arrant nonsense, and it’s the sort of thing “up with which I shall not put.”

But the “personal relationship” thing never struck me that way, for whatever reason. Perhaps it’s because I’m male, and have a little bit in me of that male mindset which sees the word “relationship” not as a “warm fuzzy” but as an obligation, even a burden.

Or, perhaps it’s because I see the phase, when taken perfectly literally, to cure a misconception of God to which we humans are prone: The belief that, sure, we talk about God “speaking to us,” but of course all we REALLY mean is our “conscience bugging us or something like that.” And, sure, we talk about God loving us, but let’s face it, that’s His job and we don’t think about Him actually, say, LIKING us.

In other words, we humans tend to “play” the idea of God, like little kids playing cops ‘n’ robbers. But there comes a time (I’m paraphrasing from a C.S. Lewis analogy, here) when all the kids freeze, wide-eyed and silent…was that a real footstep they just heard on the back porch? Suddenly the game is no game.

And we humans likewise fiddle around casually with God assuming that we can give verbal assent to His existence, and otherwise be unaffected by Him. But there comes a moment — and a Christian church should push on us an awareness of that moment — when we should experience the shock of reality: What if God actually loves us — jealously? What if we were praying, rather by rote, and then…He answered? What if He weren’t some far-away abstract notion, but a Person, a Person pursuing us, a Person rushing towards us at light speed with incomparable power, not just to pat us on the head or observe from afar, but to Get Involved, to Meddle, to Dominate, to Enrapture?! “Whoa, waitaminute…we never meant it to come to that!” we say, but it’s too late, He’s there, He’s invading our personal space, and about the time our shuddering spirits are waffling between the reaction, “Holy s***!” and the reaction “My Lord and My God!” He’s already up in our face saying, perhaps in response to both exclamations: “Exactly.”

Anyhow, I think that phrase, or another like it, needs to be used to repeatedly remind us humans that we’re not play-acting here, and we’re not deists believing in a blind watchmaker who sets the universe running and then leaves us to our random fates. God is not aloof. He is involved with us, with me, intimately. He is going to speak to us, to me, directly.

Re: “But if people insist on using it, what do you think people back in the day had if it wasn’t a personal relationship with Jesus?”

Don’t misunderstand me; I think a “personal relationship with Jesus” is exactly what Thomas Aquinas and St. Francis and Joe Blow the Devout Butcher (or Baker or Candlestick Maker) had. I don’t by any means intend to insinuate they didn’t.

I just think that we humans, then and now, are prone to live our lives like “functional atheists” or “functional deists” unless someone reminds us (with whatever phraseology) that, while we’ve been neglecting Him all day, the Creator of the Universe has been waiting patiently at our elbow, full of love for us and desire for communion with us, waiting for us to speak and listen.

And, one other clarification: We humans need reminding of this, I have said. By “we humans” I mean “we Catholics” and “we Evangelicals” equally.

I can’t know directly whether local Catholic catechetical techniques are doing this job less effectively than their Evangelical counterparts because I haven’t experienced them (and anyway I expect it varies from parish to parish).

But the Catholics I’ve met who’ve started attending Evangelical services often cite a need for “personal relationship” as a reason. Anecdotal evidence suggests this comment is commonplace; from reading these threads I guess I’m far from alone in hearing this.

So, if we know on principle that these persons COULD have a “personal relationship” with Christ while attending Catholic services, why on earth are they overcoming inertia enough to leave their parish, going to an Evangelical service, and suddenly saying they’ve found something they hadn’t found before?

My guess (and it is only a guess) is that, while the “personal relationship” is available wherever we are, that we need those constant reminders and exhortations to help us overcome our human tendency to “play God” and to become “functional deists.”

The evangelical congregations which I have been privileged to serve have generally been (I think) pretty effective in that kind of exhortation. And they used the phrase “personal relationship with God,” among others, to do it.

So, when I submit that phrase for your consideration, I do so not as a criticism, but as a friendly recommendation from one neighbor to another: “This worked for me; maybe it’ll work for you.”

You brought such a smile to my face with your statement: “I don’t object to people using that terminology. It’s not the worst approximation. But it’s never going to sound particularly natural coming out of my mouth, any more than I’d naturally come up with highly stylized expressions of faith like “I’d just like to thank you, Father God”. And as a nerd, I would like to point out that, when I speak in an idiom unnatural to me, the results are not particularly desirable.”

I’m a nerd, too. Certifiable. And I commiserate. I too wrestle with trying to adapt my communicative style to the needs of others.

In my case (as you might guess; just look above!) it’s a tendency to get really wordy, to be so enamored of using just the right turn-of-phrase that I throw the idea of brevity to the winds and just go on and on and on…. Oh, and also, my subordinate clauses have subordinate clauses; my parenthetical phrases have parenthetical phrases. Some of my favorite bits of writing in the world are run-on sentences.

And finally, if the nuance and cadence of a thirty-dollar word appeals more to my mind and ear, I just can’t…bring…myself…to…use…a…small…word…instead.

I read recently the sad news of the death of William F. Buckley. When by God’s mercy I get to heaven, where I’m confident Buckley now resides, I plan on asking him whether, when we get a perfected spiritual body relieved of all our genetic defects and psychological ailments, does that mean I won’t have this predisposition to ostentatious verbiage anymore?

Apparently, the Vatican has announced that baptisms are invalid if they were not administered with the words “in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

The announcement is in response to some innovators’ use of politically-correct formulas using such words as “in the name of the Creator and of the Redeemer and of the Sanctifier” or “Creator, Liberator and Sustainer” …in order to avoid referring to the Trinity with masculine names.

Susan Wood, theology professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, is quoted about the reasoning behind the announcement:

“…[an attempt to] avoid male language for God ends up creating more serious problems for Trinitarian theology,” because the wording takes away the relationship that each member of the Trinity has with the other and ends up reducing members of the Trinity to their functional roles.

Janice,
I wonder, would the phrase ‘deep personal communion with Christ’ serve you better? John Paul II spoke often about personal relationship with Christ, but he also used the word communion. I think at least one of JPII’s aims was to develop and deepen for Catholics a sense of personal intimacy with God; in Novo Millenio Inuente for example he said, “prayer can progress, as a genuine dialogue of love, to the point of rendering the person wholly possessed by the divine Beloved, vibrating at the Spirit’s touch, resting filially within the Father’s heart. This is the lived experience of Christ’s promise: “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (Jn 14:21).” In the next paragraph he says we must “fall in love” with God. (NMI 32-33)

I have experienced this deep sense of personal ‘relationship/intimacy/communion’ with God as a constant awareness of his presence and personal, familiar love for me. Because of that, I seek to have regular ‘bodily’ contact with him by way of the sacraments, especially Eucharist and Confession. Also, because I am in love with him, I do not find it difficult to keep the commandments. My favorite way to pray is to read Scripture in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament. I’ve also heard his voice in prayer, been guided in decisions, been called to repentence.

When one has tasted this, one only wants others to have it too, and to feel unsettled when it seems as if people’s religious/devotional lives do not put them in contact with the living, passionate, relentless, stubborn, tender love of God in Christ Jesus.

If the word relationship doesn’t suit, how about ‘deep personal communion’?

I’m 25 years old but we ARE separated by a cultural divide. For me, the notion of “personal relationship” has the feel of a lot of superficiality to it, but apparently not for you. For many Catholics, my grandparents and parents included, Catholicism was never mere assent to the propositions of the faith. I think that’s a canard that’s too often bandied about by Protestants. And, as part of the evidence I cited above, if you don’t think pre-Vatican II Catholics (viz. my grandparents) were approaching Jesus as a PERSON, then what would you call it? They had a deeply “personal” relationship with Jesus. It just wasn’t “like” yours. There seems to be the notion that if Catholics don’t have a relationship to Jesus that matches or replicates the evangelical relationship to Jesus, then it’s inauthentic or just an intellectual assent. There are many ways in which people express their faith, not just the evangelical way and the Catholic Church has had 2000 years in which to express its faith. I find it odd that now all of this should come down to just one way. Often, evangelicali converts to Catholicism consider “cradle” Catholics as inauthentic or “cultural Catholics” or “traditionalists” if they don’t aspire to express their faith in evangelical ways, but they don’t stop to consider that these same Catholics are just as Catholic as they are and just as personally invested in their faith and just as deeply encountering Christ.

I do like the notion of using “communion” to express my encounter with Christ. I’m studying some of the Orthodox Fathers of the Church and that’s a word they use often. And Joseph Ratzinger often uses the word “communion” to express the relationship of the local churches to the universal church as well as that of the Orthodox to the Latin church. So it’s a nice way to put it.

For those of us who are either confused/put off/unsure about the “personal relationship” with Jesus motif, here is a link to “Standing on My Head” blog of Fr. Dwight Longenecker, who himself, as an evangelical in his youth, didn’t understand the term either.

Since the word “communion” seems (per your conversation with Carole) to suit you better than relationship, I’ll use it throughout the following:

In an earlier reply to a post of mine, you stated: “My argument is not with people like you.” I think that’s correct; I feel that as we’ve replied to one another, we’ve sometimes made points which don’t so much debate what the other is saying, as debate something that someone else has said, elsewhere.

To emphasize that, let me assure you that I do not hold any of the following opinions:

(1.) That Catholics as a whole don’t have personal communion with God;

(2.) That Catholics who do have personal communion with God do so in a way which is inferior to that experienced by Evangelicals; or,

(3.) That Catholics must experience personal communion with God in a fashion identical to that experienced by Evangelicals for it to be either (a.) valid or (b.) equally deep and meaningful.

I don’t agree with any of those three items! (Otherwise I’d scarcely be considering reconciling to Rome…!) Apparently, though, there are people who do take one or more of those views, and you’ve had some prior experience having to debate them? (If so, I’m sorry for you!)

As far as what I do believe…? Well, waitaminute; “believe” is too strong a word. Let me instead say that I find it likely that: (numbering order continued for clarity of future reference)

(6.) Individual Christians, whether they are attending Catholic or Evangelical services, vary in both (a.) their willingness to put effort into learning and implementing the teachings offered to them, and (b.) the idioms and cultural references that they understand best; and,

(7.) The style of communication a church/service/teacher uses to teach and exhort a particular congregant will be more, or less, successful depending on how well that communication style matches the idioms and cultural references that individual best understands.

To items 4-7, which I find likely, let me add other items I find plausible:

(8.) I think it plausible that Evangelical services vary more widely from one to another than Catholic services in their degree of focus on (and success at) prompting Christians toward personal communion with God;

(9.) I think it plausible that the leadership in an Evangelical church (by “churches” I mean local congregations, here, not a denominational hierarchy) can, on average, effect tactical-level change in their services (or start entirely new ones) more quickly than in a Catholic church.

Let me pause for a moment to say two things:

First, that I am about to start referring to elements of worship and teaching as “formulae” or “tactics” for encouraging personal communion with God. I resent having to use such terms (it makes sincere and devout worship-leaders sound like a cabal of advertising executives) but I use the terms for brevity’s sake.

Second, that I may be completely mistaken about items 8 and 9, since I have no experience of Catholic churches to draw from. I am open to being corrected, here. As an (admittedly extreme) example of Item #9, I have seen an evangelical church go from perceiving the need for an additional service, to designing an order-of-service and style suited to the intended congregants, to selecting staff and hiring musicians and outfitting a facility and starting that service, with 500 worshipers in attendance, in a period of about four-and-a-half months. I have no way of knowing how common that is in the Catholic church; I can only suspect that the process might be slower for organizational reasons.

To continue…

(10.) I think it plausible that the wide variation amongst Evangelical services might have allowed some of them (whether through sheer dumb luck, or through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, or a mix of both) to hit upon a successful formula and vocabulary for encouraging personal communion with God among congregants.

(11.) By “successful” in item #10, I don’t mean exclusive or unique or anything that means Catholic services don’t or couldn’t or haven’t had/used the same formula/vocabulary. I just mean some set of habits that serendipitously communicates a very helpful message to a very broad range of people, as opposed to communicating it to only a narrow range of personality types, or communicating an less-helpful message to a broad range of types.

(12.) If I was correct about item #9, above, then once a few Evangelical services hit upon the correct formula/tactic (again, distasteful terms, but stay with me), then it is plausible that many others were able to “change direction on a dime” and emulate that formula/tactic.

If I have made no great error thus far, then this process (an evolutionary one) would (plausibly) lead to item #13, below:

(13.) I think it plausible that as more Evangelical services adopted terminology/practices conducive to encouraging personal communion with God, and did so more rapidly than Catholic services (assuming I’m correct about item #9), the net result was to have the population of Evangelical churches overall encouraging that personal communion in a way that was more effective for a large percentage of congregants, than the comparable terminology/practices then in use in the population of Catholic services.

If I am correct about item #13, it must be taken with the following caveats:

(14.) You don’t get something for nothing, part 1: It may be that the variable and changeable nature of Evangelical services has garnered this benefit at the expense of some other virtue that they’d have had if they were more consistent and stable;

(15.) You don’t get something for nothing, part 2: It may be that the adoption of terminology/practices that made Evangelical services unusually fit for encouraging personal communion, simultaneously made them less fit for encouraging other aspects of the Christian Life, such as self-discipline, depth of knowledge, or receptiveness to authority.

(16.) People vary, and if the terminology/practices in use in Evangelical services for encouraging personal communion may be successful at encouraging most people, but spectacularly unsuccessful at encouraging other types of people. These latter persons will be better “fed” by other styles of worship/teaching which they will hopefully find elsewhere (plausibly, at Catholic services).

(17.) It is likely that many individual Catholics see no problem at all and wonder “why the fuss?” and find the behavior of fellow Catholics attending Evangelical services utterly inexplicable. This could happen either because (a.) their particular parish does an excellent job already at encouraging personal communion with God; or, (b.) the particular type of encouragement to personal communion offered at their parish is helpful for them, though not for some of their former fellow parishoners who’ve left to attend Evangelical services, owing to the differences in their individual personalities. These two possibilities allow for the chance that the overall trend is real, but that certain parishes and persons are statistical outliers.

Finally…,

All of the above is intended as a hypothesis to explain data, not as a club with which to criticize either Evangelicals or Catholics. (There is, after all, an opening for criticism of the mutability of Evangelicals, perhaps not only in matters of style, but in more substantive areas as well, in the above analysis.)

The data are these: We see widespread anecdotal evidence that some Catholics are preferring to be “fed” at Evangelical services. The Pew report suggests that these anecdotes have some statistical validity. The Catholics who’re going out of their way to attend Evangelical services say, I’m sure, lots of different things about why they do this, but the “personal relationship/communion” topic keeps coming up.

We’d like to know why.

So, items 4 through 13 are proposed as a hypothesis to explain those data.

Now, let’s suppose for the sake of argument that items 4-13 are actually correct. Does that mean, automatically, that Catholic churches ought to change anything?

Well, not necessarily. It could be that this is a trade-off that they’re willing to accept because other, higher priorities come into play.

Or, it could be that a bunch of Catholics hare off to Evangelical services for a while — long enough to develop a notion of personal communion with God — only to find that notion difficult to sustain in practice, and return to Catholic services if they find that certain Catholic practices, while not as helpful for initially inculcating a desire to commune with God, are superior for keeping it going for decades. If that were to become a consistent pattern, the Church might find it preferable, not to change in the direction of emulating Evangelicals (which would sacrifice the long-term approach), but rather in the direction of catechizing Catholics how to attend and benefit from Evangelical services without accidentally absorbing errant teaching.

Or it could be that within the Evangelical movement are some Catholics who, in an earlier era, would have produced a popular Catholic movement similar to the Franciscan or Dominican movements — suddenly emerging outside the norms of the Church and unsettling in some ways but motivated purely by an intent to express love for God radically. In an earlier era, prior to schism, the Church was the sole dispenser of Christianity and would certainly have had to confront such a movement and either offer approval or disapproval; in the current era, such a judgment might be postponed indefinitely because these persons simply went elsewhere…but at the price of these persons being exposed to errors of teaching and the absence of some sacraments.

Or…any number of other things might happen. Heck, one day there could be a new Rite added, parallel to Eastern and Western, intended to service the specific needs of Catholics who otherwise would be sitting in Evangelical churches. Who knows?

But if the Church does decide that any kind of change is called for, then emulation of whichever specific tactics the Evangelicals are using (provided they don’t conflict with church teaching) is obviously one of the available options.

I have some Evangelical relatives and watched some Evangelical shows. What I gathered from them is that because Catholics have a host of saints, angels, Mother Mary, and Popes we’re diffuse. Any connection to Jesus exists, but is just one connection among many we have to hierarchies and holy men. (The Catholic view of the Eucharist is seen as either utterly incomprehensible, foolish, or irrelevant to many Evangelicals I’ve known) Even the fairly Catholic-leaning C. S. Lewis considered the Hail Mary to be a sign of something like this as prayers, in his opinion, should only focus on Jesus or other members of the Trinity.

Although another view I’ve seen on occasion is that one part of the Trinity is to be more emphasized than others. These people might be fine with saying Catholics have a valid “personal communion with God”, but believe we have an impersonal or inferior connection to Christ. While some Pentecostals would say we don’t have as much connection to the Holy Spirit as they do.

As for Catholics going Evangelical in some cases this is because they are seeking a “personal relationship”, but more to a community than anything. Rightly or wrongly Catholic parishes are seen as “cold.” Even my devout parents have stories where priests or parishioners refused to help them. Catholics in some parts of the country are seen as being stingy with emotional support or fellowship to those who desire or ask for it.

I think all this “personal relationship” stuff is all in your head. If you want to relate to Christ, those suffering the most need your attention. I think that Christ has been reduced to a brand: I have a personal car, a personal computer, a personal relationship with Christ. I wonder, is anyone else allowed in this “relationship”?

Christ as a brand can be a substitute, an imaginary friend, for the real demands of the Gospel.

I think that comment was a little harsh. I agree that one can quickly develop a relationship with Christ and communion with God by working with those who are in need and suffer, but my original comment which seems to have moved this discussion onto Evangelical vs Catholic was never meant to do that. My intent was to avoid the use of Evangelical to denote fundementalists and anti Catholics like Pastor (I use the title loosely) Hagee and the like, when there are many like RC who simply want to know Christ and to serve him and left to their own devices without the prejudices of history etc, don’t really care about Luther, Calvin etc. That doesn’t mean they don’t have real doctrinal issues with us, they do, however their concern is very simply to know and to serve God, in the person of Jesus as they come to know Him in Scripture. And of course, carry out the great commission.

I thought my clause ‘however they come by it’ made it clear, there are many ways to come to this relationship or communion and no one has a corner on it, however we all called to it. How else can we say with St. Paul, “It is not I who live, but Jesus who lives in me”? Evanglicals are the only ones called to this communion. JPII spoke of it all the time as have all the saints, B16 mentions it all the time as well, and my favorite Jersey City priest, Fr. Groeschel speaks of having a relationship with Jesus and God and the Trinity all the time. And through the Scriptures then nurtured in the Eucharist.

In fairness, I do believe that many Catholics have become defensive because just as happened in the earlier history of this country when protestants hit us over the head with the persnal interpretation of the Bible, our families have been divided and damaged by prosthelytising evangelicals who have convinced many of our Catholic brothers and sisters that the Church deliberately kept us from having a personal relationship with Jesus, and kept us from the truth of Scripture. It has always amazed me that those coming from Protestant denominations into the Church are serene and grateful for their past religious upbringing, whereas former Catholics are disdaining and even hateful toward the Church. Many of the ‘evangelicals’ I have most disliked in my lifetime are former Catholics.

What I tongue in cheek call the protestant trinity, ‘Jesus and me and bible make three’, is simple and sufficient, if it weren’t there would never have been a Billy Graham. Do I think he is part of the communion of saints? You bet! He preached Jesus, born, crucified, died and resurrected for each and every one of us. He didn’t tell you what denominaton was best, he just wanted you to know there was a God who loved each of us enough to die for us. And after all, who did Christ come to reveal if not the Father? In fact, the Trinity. That is where I think protestantism can fall down, evangelicalism because the Father becomes something Holy, other and in the background. Much less personal in that He is spoken of simply as all holy. The Holy Spirit is emphasized as the one who leads us to all truth but no one explains how He can be so schizophrenic and lead so many to different versions of the truth.

That was the straw that finally broke my protestant back. I thought I would find Truth in a church that took Scripture, not literally, but as inerrant and inspired and the basis for living. Until of course, the pastor said, we take the scriptures to be inerrant in the ORIGNAL FORM. Then everyone argued, discussed what passages meant. Those that met their ‘traditions’ were taken literally, those that were ‘Roman’ were spiritualized or simply put off as ‘hard sayings’. Well, that didn’t go over big with me. So I finally went to the source, I literally cried out to Christ with Bible in hand, where is the Truth? And that night I did experience Jesus personally. Dawn Eden says maybe these are hypnogogic experiences. Other CAtholics have called it infused knowlege. I don’t know, I was simply in awe as I let my bible open. It opened to the bread of life discourse and as I sat their with tears streaming down my face, I was given a theology lesson that I have never been able to repeat but because of it I can say, ‘I know that I know’. And when explanations seem impossible, especially for my 8th grade CCD class, I pray and they come, full blown. It was and continues to be the most wonderous and humbling experience of my life. It has also made me pray incessantly for unity.

Remember, the Church has an and/both faith and we have been very good at doing something RC alludes to. Where protestants continually split off and create denominations, the Church has created new orders. Oh sure, at our core we have to share the same beliefs, but how we express it is quite different. Grace as St. Francis saw it and grace as defined by the Dominicans and taught in our catechisms is quite different and yet both are accepted and acceptable in the Church. It is a witness to the real universality and Spirit led faith of the Church.

We need to study our faith and teach it. We need to stop being defensive, look at what we have in common and then pray about the rest. And pray for those who are working towards unity, Fr. Groeschel, the Holy Father (s), Timothy George, Chuck Colson and so so many others who have taken to heart Christ’s prayer that we all be one. It isn’t easy, but then nothing good ever is.

One way, Steve, is to work together on service projects, you’re right about that.

Chris, I did not mean the “your” in my response to be you, Chris. It was meant to be the rhetorical “your.” I think that Christ is unknowable apart from communion in Christ through the Church. That is where we have a personal relationship with Christ. We have a personal relationship with Christ anyway, whether we know it or not. The point is, as far as Scripture goes, God’s words are not God; so, Scripture is not absolutely everything to a Catholic. It’s a family treasure, deeply loved, even kissed at Liturgy, revered and held to be sacred. It is not an end in itself; other congregations seem to rely on it for every moral and theological problem. Good luck and God bless. No such thing as Scripture alone. No such thing as me and Jesus alone.

I know you didn’t mean me personally and you and I are in agreement, sola scriptura is not enough which is one of the reasons I am back in the Church, but what we take as our ‘rule of faith’ to borrow a phrase, sola scriptura or Scripture and Tradition, does not affect the Church’s view that Scripture is the Word not the words of God. I am not at all in agreement that one does not and cannot know Christ

‘… apart from communion in Christ through the Church’

unless of course you do subscribe to the union, albeit imperfect, of all Christians with the Church. I must be reading different encyclicals and different Vatican II documents. Besides, that would mean there has never been a Protestant who has had communion in Christ or with Christ? Wow, I have known too many who did and do. Oh no, Scripture is not God’s words, it is in the words of the writers but in their own words they express the Word of God. And as my husband so innocently said to me last night, “You can tell Sullivan was raised a Catholic (this gentleman is a memeber of my husband’s congregational church), he ends his reading of scripture with ‘the Word of the Lord’. As a lector, I am used to hearing that, as a protestant my husband is used to ‘here ends the reading’. St. John is very clear who the Word of God is. The encounter on the way to Emmaus is also very clear about the Word. Was it Augustine who said, ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ”?

No, I would have to strenuously disagree with you. The Church has the fullness faith, I agree, but the bible is far more than a beloved book. As I said earlier it is sufficient, sufficient to know and commune with Christ in the Spirit. What is so amazing and wonderful for we Catholics is that we have Christ in both the Scriptures and the Eucharist. That is about as full as one can get.